The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Firearms should always remain locked when they are not in use to prevent an accidental discharge and/or to prevent access by unauthorized persons. For this reason, there are no shortage of commercially available firearm locking mechanisms. The vast majority of these devices are individual, separate components such as trigger guards and/or trigger locks, for example that can be manually secured along or about the external portion of the firearm trigger to prevent access to the same.
Although better than nothing, these devices suffer from several practical drawbacks. For example, because these locking mechanisms are externally mounted, it is not uncommon for one or more pieces of the locking mechanism to become lost when it is removed from the weapon. Additionally, users often secure the lock onto the weapon incorrectly, thereby causing a situation where access to the firearm can be obtained by an unauthorized user. Finally, the time required to physically remove the external lock may be unacceptable in emergency situations where the user needs immediate access to the weapon.
For these reasons, many individuals forego using a physical locking mechanism and instead store the weapon with the integrated selector switch at SAFE. Although the selector switch does work well to prevent an inadvertent discharge of the firearm, it does nothing to prevent an unauthorized user from firing the weapon by transitioning the switch from SAFE to FIRE.
The present invention, directed to a firearm grip with an integrated locking mechanism, differs from the conventional art in a number of aspects. The manner by which will become more apparent in the description which follows, particularly when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.